Day 388: Timber Trail (1)

Highlight:

One of joys of trail life this time round was naturally waking early, getting a chuck of walking done before the sun heated up, and taking a long lunch during the heat of the day. Today I stopped of at the Timber Trail lodge and inhaled a pizza. I was surprised to have not seen many bikers on the trail, only 4 or 5 groups. At the lodge I was slowly meet by a influx of people as tables and chairs fulled up over the afternoon. These people appeared freshly showered, in clean clothes and I took this as my queue to walk on.  

Challenge:

Arriving at the summit of Mt Pureora, I felt a little disorientated. I understood Te Araroa departed the Timber Trail to go up and over the mountain. Last time I was here, we meet a group of three women walking Te Araroa. I have since connected that this was most likely the group we had meet in Riverton (Rebecca, Hannah & Rosie).

Anyway the mountain looked different today, there were no views to the Central Plateau, just a layer of white. My map indicated to head down the track marked as unmaintained. I proceeded down, only to be quickly slowed by over grown trees and bushes. I backtracked to the summit, was there another track I had missed?? With the luxury of reception I used the phone a friend card, and woke Trent up. He confirmed Te Araroa does follow this unmaintained track. He advised it's over gowned for about 10m and I just had to push my way through it.

Well 6 months later and was more like 50-100m of where the bush had completely swallowed the track. I shimmied through the worst of it, my shorts absorbing the water on the leaves around. It eventually opened up to tramping track. I did take a slide and hit my leg on a root. It was okay to walk on, but I was feeling wet and hurt.  I knew I couldn't stay there, on this unmaintained track. I would be better off getting back down to the Timber Trail were if it was a serious injury, there would be people passing by. I could assess and do first aid there if needed. Arriving back on the Timber Trail, there was a small amount of blood, and I was cold-ish - my gloves (a go to) were in the depths of my my pack, so I grabbed my rain jacket until my pace picked up and warmed up. The bruise still remains 3 weeks on.

Learning:

While at lunching at the Timber Trail Lodge, and re powering my phone. I browsed a stack of Wilderness magazines. One with a feature on biking, the great rides and bike packing. 20,000 people coming through the Timber Trail annually, well up from the 5000 expected in its inception.

Summary: